Government Accountability Institute's Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers discussed the politics of disaster relief and FEMA's shift from "utilitarian emergency management" to "disaster equity" in the wake of Hurricane Helene, on the Government Accountability Institute's "The Drill Down" podcast.
"We could play a bunch of clips like this. Kamala Harris says the FEMA response has been "tremendous," we have local media in North Carolina -- the Charlotte Observer, a liberal paper, says FEMA is doing a great job and there are fake rumors out there. The bottom line is you're hearing this on the ground from Cedar Key, Florida up to North Carolina, that there are major problems here," Schweizer said.
"FEMA has a certain number of disaster personnel, they are deployed around the country where there are crises. One of the crises in the Biden administration has been along the U.S.-Mexican border with this flood of illegal immigrants coming into the U.S."
"And we know that FEMA now has been spending large sums of money helping with migrants that show up at the border. In fact, there are FEMA personnel along the border, and the Biden administration has lied about this," he said.
Schweizer cited this video where White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre has two different stories about the role of FEMA in processing illegal migrants.
"If you're a government agency, you can only do a couple of things really well," Schweizer said. "Mission creep is part of it, and why do they do that? Money! There's only so much we can spend on disaster relief, so FEMA says they're going to spend and get involved in a bunch of other things so they can increase the amount they get from the federal government every year."
Eggers comments: "Even though you hear some reporters disputing that Donald Trump said they spent all their money on the migrants, it is 100% true that FEMA's Emergency Food and Shelter Program has been reshaped to provide funding to 'families and individuals encountered by the DHS,' $685 million have been reallocated to illegal aliens. That's a clearly true thing. And by the way, we're running out of money to take care of victims of hurricanes. If you look at FEMA's disaster relief budget, they spent $4 billion on Covid-19 aid in September of this year, which is the most they've had in any month since "October 2023. So hurricanes are getting worse, but apparently, so is Covid -- four years after the pandemic."
"So if DHS Secretary Mayorkas is saying FEMA doesn't have the funds to make it through the season, maybe some of the funds that went to feed and fund migrant programs is now money that's not available for hurricane relief," Eggers said.
"It is money and personnel," Schweizer added. "You have programmatic expansion, they're doing immigration and all these other issues, but they're changing the definition in a way of 'disaster relief.' If you thought the wokeness affecting American corporations was bad enough, it's now affecting FEMA. When you see these volunteers going in and not getting paid, our federal government is focused on 'equity' when it comes to disaster relief."
Schweizer comments on a video of an internal FEMA meeting where they prioritize "disaster equity" over "utilitarian emergency management."
"They acknowledge that disaster relief has been up to this point, utilitarian. The greatest good for the greatest number. Hello! Isn't that what disaster assistance is supposed to be about? And she says, no, we're moving to a more advanced 'disaster equity' where we're now going to focus on certain individuals and communities," Schweizer said. "This is insane. This is absolutely insane."
"Their actual goal in disaster relief, she said, is no longer the greatest good for the greatest number of people!"
Eggers adds: "FEMA lists three goals on their website as their strategic plan, to address 'key challenges in emergency management.' You might think that means hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding. no, it turns out the number one goal is 'to instill equity as the number one goal of emergency management.' They also get into climate resilience and 'diversity., equity, and conclusion can not be optional' in FEMA's plan."
"What does 'disaster equity' look like?" asked Schweizer. "Do you have to have the equivalent portion of people die in each community? If you have a town where 15% of the population is Chinese-American, it is not equitable if too many or too few of that community dies?"
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